Sherlock Theme Park Coming to the UK

Sherlock fans rejoice! Plans are being made
in Portsmouth, UK to develop a theme park devoted to the popular detective of
literary, cinematic and television renown. Why Portsmouth, you ask, rather than
London? You have to go further back than the TV shows and movies to the real
life of the detective’s creator. After failing to get a medical practice off to
a solid start in Plymouth, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle headed South to Portsmouth
for a second start only to falter there as well. But his failure was to our
favor because his career flagging gave him time to write and, voila, the result
was the character that has spawned legions of fans, adaptations and now a theme
park.

Steve Pitt of Portsmouth’s Culture
Partnership is the brainchild behind the planned Sherlock park that is
estimated to cost ?25 million. While there are not a ton of details yet and,
unfortunately, no art has been revealed, the concept alone is thrilling and is
already generating a lot of excitement. So far, what we know is that Pitt says,
“What we are talking about is a world class Sherlock Holmes experience. It
would be very interactive and high quality. There are so many tie-ins around
the legacy of Sherlock Holmes being born in Portsmouth.”

Sherlock park attractions will include
multimedia experiences, interactive exhibits, rides, holograms and more.
There’s also a treasure trove of artifacts to be mined in Portsmouth as the
city has an extensive Arthur Conan Doyle collection rife with Holmsian goodies.
The park is tentatively slated for an area near the author’s Victorian era
Southsea home. No design firm or ride details have been released yet, so we’re
free to wonder and speculate on what we might see.

The primary concern is whether the
attractions would be drawn primarily from the works of literature – this would
be the cheapest option in terms of securing rights and licensing for materials.
The upside of this is that it would allow the entertainment design firm to be
utterly unconstrained with what they created. The downside would be that most
guests are hankering for the Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman iteration
of the titular character and his sidekick.

But the currently reigning BBC duo aside,
there are plenty of other enticing Doyle-inspired versions of the story.
There’s the period-cinematic version embodied by Robert Downey, Jr and Jude
Law. On the small screen, there’s the American hit vehicle starring Brit Jonny
Lee Miller as Sherlock and female sidekick Joan Watson portrayed by Lucy Liu.
Then there are BBC television and films throwbacks from the 1980s to draw on as
well.

I’m torn between the Cumberbatch, Downey
and Miller’s portrayals but since it’s a UK park, I have to imagine if they
draw on modern versions, the Batch will wins hand down. And that’s something
well worth investigating… Once more clues about this mystery park crop up,
we’ll be sure to update our case file!